Rutherford Alpha Particle Scattering

• Ernest Rutherford experimented with the Plum Pudding Method by directing a beam of alpha particles at a thin sheet of gold foil in a vacuum.
• What happened:

  • Most alpha particles passed through the gold foil
  • A small number were deflected as they passed through the foil
  • A very small number of particles bounced back
• He found that atoms:

  • were mostly empty space
  • had a positively charged nucleus where most of the mass was concentrated
  • had a layer of negatively charged electrons on the outside